Twisted Innocence (Moonlighters Series Book 3) (17 page)
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll do whatever I need to do. But Miller’s men . . . they’re going to keep trying to take me out. They’ll be more desperate than ever.”
“We’ll find you a place to hide. I don’t want to rely on the feds or the local police to do that. That’s backfired on us before.” She didn’t mention that the safe house where the police had “hidden” her sister was the place from which her sister’s children had been abducted a few months ago. Miller and his men had no trouble finding them. “But you’re right. They’ll be gunning for you more than ever. Even that could give us an opportunity to catch them. We’ll need your absolute cooperation, and it’s bound to get scary. But you’ve proven already that you’re resourceful.” She cleared her throat. “Can’t say I like how resourceful you are, taking my sister and all, but still. You’ve managed to avoid the thugs so far, and that’s pretty remarkable.”
He looked less like a thug now than when she’d first seen him. Or was she just getting soft?
“Look, I know this isn’t easy for you,” he said. “But these guys are brutal. Miller is the worst of all. Making sure he gets caught along with all his guys is life or death for me. You have to believe that.”
She stared at him a moment longer. “I think I do.”
“So when do we start?”
She slid her chair back and stood up. “I have a lot of negotiating to do with the police and the prosecutors, both here and in Southport, so you may be here for a while. Maybe even overnight.”
“Overnight? If you could get them to keep me in isolation . . .
just so Miller doesn’t reach me from the inside . . . then I can deal with that.”
“That will be part of our deal. Just sit tight. Don’t talk to anybody about anything unless I’m with you. Got that?”
“Okay. But now that you’re representing me, you’ll have to watch your back. This guy is really dangerous.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” she said. “Miller has been on my mind every single day for over two years. He’s going to get what’s coming to him.”
She shook his hand. “Now, what did I say about talking to anyone without me?”
“Don’t do it.”
“If they come to transport you, and you say, ‘Look, guys, you don’t have to treat me like a killer, because I didn’t do it,’ that could legally give them the authority to question you some more. If you open the conversation, they can use whatever you say. You don’t discuss the case or anything about the case, not to them, not on the phone to your parents, not to the guards. Got that?”
“Yes. Cathy, thank you. You have no idea what this means to me.”
“Oh, I have some idea.”
Her hands were shaking as she left the room.
M
onday morning, Michael rode the elevator down with the rest of the work crew, some of the louder men talking trash about one of the female guards. The elevator door opened, and they lined up to sign out at the front desk before going to the van.
As he waited his turn with the clipboard, Michael looked back at the holding cells, wondering if Creed was in one of them. He walked over and glanced into their barred windows. There was someone there. Michael saw a man sitting back against the wall, his feet up on the bench. That could be him.
Michael’s least favorite guard—the one he’d secretly dubbed Adolph—went to the cell door with a tray in his hands, holding a sandwich, an apple, and a cup of water. “You men hurry up. Van’s waiting.”
Michael signed the form, then glanced back as the guard unlocked the holding cell door. “Kershaw, here’s your breakfast.”
So that
was
him. Michael stepped back and watched as the
guy got up and hurried to grab the tray. Michael didn’t recognize him. The cell door closed again.
Michael followed the crew to the sliding steel doors that led to the van and silently prayed that Kershaw would lead them to Leonard Miller.
In the holding cell, Creed devoured his sandwich—the first food he’d been given since coming in here. He finished off the cup of water in three gulps and picked up the apple, turned it over. It was bruised in places. He wasn’t surprised. The inmates probably didn’t get premium grade-A food. He bit into it. It was sour, so he chewed and swallowed quickly, then turned the apple over and took a bite from the other side. It left a horrible aftertaste in his mouth.
He wondered if the taste came from something they’d used to wash the apple. Whatever it was didn’t taste right. He took one more bite, chewed it quickly, wincing, then decided it wasn’t worth it. He spat the mouthful into his napkin.
He set the tray beside the door and went back to the bench. How much longer would this take? It was freezing in this place, and the benches were just metal bolted to the floor—no cushions. There was nothing to do. No television, no radio . . . just him and his self-loathing thoughts.
He didn’t even know the time. He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling tiles. What was Holly doing now? He pictured her sitting at home in a rocking chair, feeding Lily, feeling that sense of contentment he’d felt when he’d so briefly held his child. Would he ever see Lily again? Would Holly even give him the time of day now that he wasn’t forcing her to?
How had he messed his life up so much?
He should get Cathy to call his parents. There would be comfort in letting them know that he was alive and safe. But shame stopped him. He had disgraced his family and now he was in jail.
The thought of their reaction nauseated him. His parents deserved better than this.
He sat up. The room seemed to be spinning slowly. He reached out to get his bearings, dropped his feet to the floor, and stood. The room tilted to the side . . .
He balanced himself against the wall. Sweat beaded on his forehead, over his lip. His breathing seemed blocked. He should call the teacher . . . no, it wasn’t a teacher. He wasn’t in school. He should call the . . . what did they call the man out there? The one in the costume . . . He shook his head. No, not a costume . . . uniform . . . The man who watched over him . . . the guard.
What was happening?
He turned to look at the food tray by the door. What had he eaten? He took a step toward it, called out for help. The room flipped. His face hit concrete. He forced himself to his knees, tried to sit up, tried to call out. The cell wouldn’t stop spinning and the lights grew dimmer . . .
T
he phone started ringing as Holly rinsed the shampoo from Lily’s little head. She hadn’t gotten adept yet at giving her baby a bath, and she tried to ignore the ringing. She would have to call them back.
She poured another cup of warm water over Lily’s head. Lily started to kick and wiggle. “It’s okay, sweetie. Mommy’s not gonna let you drown.” She heard her answering machine pick up, then Cathy’s loud voice.
“Holly, pick up! It’s an emergency.”
An emergency? What now? She pulled Lily out of the bathtub, threw the hooded towel around her. Lily didn’t like being wet and cold, and she wailed. Wrapping her in the towel, Holly made her way to the phone and snapped it up. “Hello?”
“Oh, good. You’re there,” Cathy said. “I knew you’d want to know. Creed was just taken to the hospital.”
“The hospital? Why?”
“He collapsed at the jail. Nobody knows what’s wrong with him, but he was really sick. I’m at the hospital now. I heard the paramedics saying that his heart rate was down to like 30, and his blood pressure is 70 over 30.”
“What?”
Holly said. “He could die! Where is he?”
“They brought him to Bay Medical. They’re taking him for tests.”
“I’m coming. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” Holly hung up. What could have caused this? He hadn’t been sick earlier. Maybe that cut had gotten infected.
She dried the baby and quickly dressed her, though she screamed and wriggled. “We’ve got to go somewhere, honey,” she said. “I hate to take you back out. I know you’ve had a rough couple of days, but something’s wrong with your daddy.”
She caught herself the moment she said those words, and her heart sank. Was she really going to think of him that way?
Why not? That’s what he was.
She snapped Lily into her car seat, grabbed her diaper bag and her purse, and rushed out to her taxi. Lily cried all the way to the hospital.
Holly tried to think over her daughter’s misery. Miller’s goons were after Creed. They wanted to see him dead. Had they managed to get to him in the jail? No, Cathy would have told her if he’d been stabbed or beaten. And Max had promised to keep him isolated.
Holly’s cell phone chimed. Cathy. She answered quickly.
“I just learned that he’s vomiting. He had just eaten before he got sick. I think he was poisoned.”
Holly just made it through a yellow light. “Miller has people in that jail.”
“I just talked to Max. He’s working on finding out who
fixed Creed’s tray and who delivered the food,” Cathy said. “Are you on your way?”
“Yes.”
“I’m calling his family. They need to know about this.”
“Cathy?” Holly’s voice cracked. “Is he going to die?”
“I don’t know how bad it is.”
Holly felt sick herself as she navigated her way to the hospital.
God, I don’t want him to die.
When she got to the ER, they let her go back, but the doctors were in the room, so she waited with Cathy in the hallway. While they waited, Max and his partner, Al Forbes, showed up to wait for the results of the blood work.
It seemed an eternity before someone finally came with the initial lab report.
Cyanide poisoning.
Panic choked Holly. “How did they get to him?” she demanded of Max. “How did they poison him if he was isolated?”
Max set his jaw. “Miller has a long reach.”
“But who had access to his food?”
“Could have been anybody who had kitchen duty.”
“Inmates?”
“Yes. They handle all the food.”
Holly wanted to scream. “Did it ever occur to you that Miller could have gotten messages to his compadres inside the jail? That they shouldn’t be handling the food of the guy they want dead?”
“I couldn’t let him sleep in the interview room!” Max said. “I had to put him somewhere.” He jammed his fists into his pockets and paced a few steps up the hall, then back, then up the hall again. “We’re going to put a guard out here to make sure no one else gets to him. We’ll only let him eat what we bring to him.”
Tears stung Holly’s eyes. Cathy took a few steps across the hall, set her hands on her hips, and turned back. Holly could almost see the gears turning in her sister’s brain. “Is anybody else sick at the jail?” Cathy asked.
“No. Nobody’s reported anything.”
“Did you get the food? Did you test it?”
“The tray had already been cleared and dumped into the same garbage where the other trays had been dumped.”
Holly’s reaction surprised even her. “Do people die of cyanide poisoning?”
“Maybe not,” Max said. “They found him pretty early. He’s in the right place. They might be able to save him.”
Holly held her baby under her chin and kissed her sleeping head.
Please, God . . . help them get that out of his system . . .
“Whoever helped with this is on Miller’s team,” Cathy said, “and whatever you can find out about him might lead us closer to Miller.”
“Right,” Max said. “We’re on it, Cathy.”
H
olly stood in the ER waiting room with her feather-haired baby, her nursing cover over her neck so the blanket would cover Lily’s head, hopefully blocking germs as she slept. This was the last place a five-week-old baby should be. Holly said a silent prayer that her immunity would protect Lily, but what about those monstrous super-bugs that turn healthy organs to mush or fill up a grown man’s lungs with fluid? Though the place smelled like Clorox, it was filled with disease, virus, and bacteria.
She tried not to touch anything, and from time to time she went to the hand sanitizer on the wall and pulled some antibacterial agent onto her hands. It dried them out and made them feel as rough as sandpaper, but if that’s what it took to keep Lily healthy . . .
She didn’t know if Creed was alive or dead, or if the antidote to the poison was readily available in this hospital, or if
his organs were harmed or his brain was damaged . . . and not knowing gave her a sick, burning feeling in her gut.
She looked down through the round hole of her nursing cover. Lily slept in shadow, her little eyes moving under her eyelids as dreams made synapses fire in her brain. She grunted in her sleep, smiled, stuck her pointed little tongue between her lips, sighed . . . Holly wanted to kiss her, but she couldn’t do it without collapsing the cloth protecting her and waking her from that fragile sleep.
The glass doors slid open with a hum, and she heard a commotion at the desk. She walked to the corner and looked around the wall. She recognized the man and woman who’d come in—Creed’s parents. His mother looked a mess, eyes red and swollen, an expression of weary terror on her face. His father held it together and took charge at the desk, asking where his son was, if they could go back to see him.
The glass doors slid open again, and the woman Holly had seen at the T-ball park and assumed to be Creed’s sister rushed in and joined them.